A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New MexicanMarch 21, 2014

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that “Drive-By Buddy,” the first song on Underneath the Rainbow, the new album byThe Black Lips, has a hint of country twang. After all, the Lips, garage-punks or “flower-punks” (their own label) that they are, covered Willie & Waylon’s “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys” a few years ago.

No, this isn’t a country or “alt-country” album, by any means. In fact, on closer listen, the guitar riff of “Drive-By Buddy” sounds a lot like George Harrison playing “Honey Don’t” or other Carl Perkins songs in those early Beatles years. (I read another review that compared it with the guitar riff of The Monkees’ “Last Train to Clarksville.” That works, too.)

But the Southern roots of the Georgia-based Lips are much more apparent here than on previous efforts. When they sing “we’re hanging on a broken T-Bird hood” in the refrain, it sounds like good redneck fun — probably more than it would be in real life.

You can hear these roots in the bouncy “Justice After All,” with its Neil Young guitar hook, and you can even hear it in the jittery mutated early rock ’n’ roll sound of “Dorner Party,” which is about spree-killer rogue cop Christopher Dorner.

You can especially hear the South in the slow, menacing “Boys in the Wood,” a song Lynyrd Skynyrd might have done had Ronnie Van Zandt survived that plane crash. The lyrics tell of moonshine, mayhem, vehicle theft, and a harrowing backwoods world that’s part Deliverance and part Thunder Road.

“His ghost lives in the trailer/It was his foster home/Pall Malls and an inhaler/His girl’s nagging on the phone/The pain his body’s feeling/Will leave you accident prone/Cause the car he was stealing/Drove to the unknown.”

Another cool thing: The Black Lips’ official video, full of violence, sex, and debauchery, is actually worthy of the song. Check it out below.

While this is not a concept album by any means, there does seem to be a common thread running through several tunes — jail and running from the police. “Waiting,” for instance, has a verse about getting paranoid about cops while driving on the interstate. “Smiling” deals directly with a night singer Jared Swilley spent in the slammer. If somebody ever makes a punk-rock version of The Dukes of Hazzard, they’ll have to get The Black Lips to do the soundtrack.

Some say that Underneath the Rainbow is the most polished Black Lips album to date. Actually, I think some people said the same thing about their previous album, the Mark Ronson-produced Arabia Mountain.

Truth is, you can detect some not-so-subtle touches by Patrick Carney, the drummer of The Black Keys, who produced most of the tracks here. For example, the electro bass sound on “Dandelion Dust,” a hard-edged boogie, is right out of The Black Keys playbook. Other tunes were produced by Tom Brenneck, the guitarist for Sharon Jones’ Dap-Kings and the New York Afrobeat group The Budos Band.

“Polished” is a relative thing. For the most part, The Black Lips, except for a few moments when they get sucked in too far into the Black Keys dimension, retain the slop, fury, and dumb jokes that made me love them in the first place.

They prove this with the scary-sounding “Do the Vibrate,” complete with wolf howls and an almost metallic “Rock Lobster” guitar riff. Beneath the threatening atmospherics, the song is actually about an alternative use for cellphones.

Also recommended:

* Buy Before You Die byFigures of Light. As an old rocker myself, it’s always enjoyable to see a band that faded away decades ago get a second breath and start rocking again. That’s definitely the story of Figures of Light, a pre-punk group that never came anywhere close to achieving the fame of The Stooges or The Velvet Underground, but they were right there in New York City in the early’ 70s, smashing TV sets onstage and cranking out raw, screeching, feedback-filled guitar rampage with sardonic, angsty lyrics.

The Figures hung up their rock ’n’ roll shoes before the end of the Me Decade. But they rose again in 2008, when they were rediscovered and reconstituted by Norton Records. Singer Wheeler Winston Dixon and guitarist Michael Downey made a couple of fine albums with Norton (Smash Hits and Drop Dead), keeping their basic rough-edged sound, but apparently that only whetted their appetites.

In the past year or so they’ve self-released several EPs of new material, including one of my favorite FOL follies, a “country” song (though actally they don't even sound as "country" as The Black Lips) called “Too Many Bills, Not Enough Thrills” as well as a compilation called Lost and Found, which included rarities, remixes, and even a screaming death-metal cover of their first “smash hit,” “It’s Lame,” by a band called Belladonna & The Decimators.

But Buy Before You Die is definitely the best thing Dixon and Downey have done since Drop Dead. It’s only seven songs long, but every one of them is a doozy.

All the selections are sandwiched between songs lampooning mindless consumerism: the title song (”You’re buying this, you’re buying that/You’re getting stupid, dumb, and fat.”) and “A Word from Our Sponsor,” a phony ad in which the band plays a Velvet-like musical backdrop as Dixon shills for some unspecified surreal, horrible-sounding food product (ingredients include rabid squirrel meat, dehydrated cow’s head, old coffee filters, toothpaste, and insect repellent).

Maybe that’s how the narrator of “Swollen Colon Lament,” another song here, ended up with his condition.

While the above-mentioned songs feature the basic up-tempo minimalist guitar rock the Figures do so well — as does the rockabilly-influenced “Pauline” — some of tracks here are, well, pretty. “Killers From Space” has breezy, jazzy chords. “The Winter of Our Discontent” is slow minor-key number with a spooky tremolo guitar. And “Streets of Rain” is a minor-key dirge with strong bass and lyrics about hopelessness.

I hope Dixon and Downey keep at it, because they’re only getting more interesting. .

Spring is in the air, and it's wacky everywhere. Join this garagey, punky party and get ready for some hopped-up, rockin' polka smack dab in the middle. Lots of new tunes by The Black Lips, Scott H. Biram, Figures of Light, J.J. & The Real Jerks, The Beatpack, Future Primitives Billy Joe Winghead and more.

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New MexicanMarch 21, 2014

Note to loyal blog readers: This column is based on the blogging I did at SXSW last week (and early this week). For all of my fabulous snapshots of SXSW and other musical shows I saw in Texas last week CLICK HERE

I had just sat down to blog about what a fun evening of rock ’n’ roll I’d had on the opening day of the South by Southwest music festival on March 12 — all the great music I heard, all the cool people I saw, and all the friends I got to hang out with — when I got a Facebook message from my brother in Santa Fe. He had news of a bizarre tragedy at SXSW and wanted to know if I was OK.

It seems that a car that was the subject of a police pursuit plowed into a crowd in front of The Mohawk near 9th and Red River Streets. At that point, two people had died and five more were critically injured. By Monday morning, one of those five had died from injuries she’d sustained in the incident. A couple of dozen people injured by that driver were transported to hospitals that night.

I’ve heard grumbling for years about how the festival has grown too big and how the streets of Austin can’t handle the traffic, the crowds, and the insanity. You can’t blame the festival organizers for the alleged actions of the defendant, Rashad Owens, an aspiring rapper and music producer, who reportedly had a gig on the festival’s last night. According to police he was fleeing from a DWI checkpoint, may have been intoxicated, and had outstanding arrest warrants.

But this is a music column, not an op-ed piece, and I did hear lots of great music at the festival and at the unofficial events that surrounded SXSW.

Lucinda

There were a couple of singers I hadn’t planned on seeing who I saw at my very first SXSW in 1995. One was Lucinda Williams, who played a brief set at the Austin Music Awards. Accompanied by her own guitar and a lead guitarist, Williams played mostly old songs like “Passionate Kisses,” “Lake Charles,” and “Drunken Angel.” She was wonderful.

Another unexpected pleasure was Howe Gelb, who I’d caught two or three times before with his old group Giant Sand. I stumbled into the Continental Club, where he was playing with a trio. On his quieter songs, he sounded like Marty Robbins after a three-week peyote trip. But Gelb can also tear loose on electric guitar with the same weird vision and fire that made me love Giant Sand to begin with.

And of course, I didn’t miss The Waco Brothers playing at the annual Bloodshot Records party at the Yard Dog Gallery. The original “insurgent country” band did some of my favorites, including “See Willie Fly By” and “Plenty Tuff Union Made.” They also did their covers of Johnny Cash’s “Big River” (which Jon Langford introduced as “Hotel California” by The Eagles), “I Fought the Law,” and a rousing (and I suspect spontaneous) “Hey! Bo Diddley.”

Smitty of The Hickoids gets ready for
his next dental appointment

I caught the classic Texas cowpunk crazies, The Hickoids (which includes longtime Santa Fe musician Tom Trusnovic), twice this year — at an east Austin joint called The White Horse, right after they were inducted into the Austin Music Hall of Fame, and later at the Triple Crown, a bar in San Marcos. As usual, they lean on the punk much heavier than the cow, but their raunchy tunes never fail to delight.

Barrence Whitfield and the Savages performed a set at C-Boy’s Heart & Soul that was sheer intensity. Playing lots of stuff from his latest, Dig Thy Savage Soul, Whitfield raised the energy level several notches. Guitarist (and Taos resident) Peter Greenberg’s fingers were bleeding well before he left the stage.

Possessed by Paul James, the musical superhero whose secret identity is mild-mannered teacher Konrad Wert, played at the off-the-beaten-track Austin Moose Lodge, at a showcase by the small but impressive Hillgrass Bluebilly Records. Wert was in his one-man-band mode, playing a small arsenal of stringed instruments and using his trademark stomp-box — which is basically a wooden board that is miked — as percussion. All that, and his voice. When Wert gets to wailing, sometimes it seems as if he really is possessed.

Bobby Patterson

Veteran Dallas soul man Bobby Patterson, who was celebrating his 70th birthday that night, performed at C-Boy’s. Never very famous as a performer, Patterson is known mainly as a producer and a DJ. He produced records for Little Johnny Taylor, Fontella Bass, and Chuck Jackson. He was backed by a band that included a horn section, and at one point he was joined onstage by Whitfield.

I first latched onto The Grannies two years ago at SXSW. Appearing in colorful wigs, horrible frocks, and muumuus, the band just tore up the Triple Crown. They attacked the music with humor as much as fury. Singer Wizard Sleeves was wearing some kind of flesh-colored body suit, and guitarist Sluggo ended his set with a classic-rock guitar smashing demonstration.

Sluggo of The Grannies

Playing at the Moose Lodge show were several bands new to me, including The Pine Hill Haints, an acoustic group (with a washtub bass) from Alabama who describe their sound as “Alabama ghost music.” Peewee Moore, a Tennessee-born songwriter, also played with an acoustic band, though his honky-tonk sound would work with a full country band — fiddle, steel, drums etc. (Apparently Moore has played the Cowgirl BBQ in Santa Fe. I hope he comes back so I can catch him again.) The Rock Bottom String Band is a gaggle of countrified hippie kids who play a variety of instruments and sing with so much enthusiasm it was impossible not to get into the spirit.

Left Lane Cruiser has a raw slide-guitar-based sound you might call “damaged blues.” The group’s bass player also made crazy noises on a bizarre homemade instrument fashioned from an old skateboard and a beer bottle on a couple of songs. It’s a type of diddley bow he calls “skidley bow.” Playing harmonica on the band’s first song was J.D. Wilkes from The Legendary Shack Shakers. Wilkes made a similar cameo earlier in the evening with The Pine Hill Haints.

Col. Wilkes with Pine Hill Haints at The Moose Lodge

The Woggles, who played at C-Boy’s, is a neo-garage band that’s been around several years. You can hear a little Count Five in The Woggles’ guitar and see a little Paul Revere & The Raiders in their moves. But mostly I heard echoes of Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels in The Woggles’ music.

A Pony Named Olga, who played at the Triple Crown, is a high-energy psychobilly trio from Berlin (they call themselves “country-punk and polkabilly”), featuring an electric guitarist/singer, a doghouse bassist, and a drummer. They have the basics of psychobilly down pat, but they also have a few unusual melodies and chord changes that bring a twist to that sound.

And then there are The Beaumonts, a tight little honky-tonk band from Lubbock led by singer Troy Wayne Delco. They play sweet country music with foul-mouthed lyrics about sex, drugs, getting drunk, and more sex. But that’s not all. They also have a song called “Toby Keith,” in which they declare that the jingoistic country star is the “ugliest woman I swear I’ve ever seen.”

Sunday, March 16, 2014

It was about 6:30 p.m. Saturday and I was teetering on exhaustion. I'd had perhaps 10 hours of sleep over the previous three nights -- which is fairly typical for me during SXSW. (Those of you who have read the typo-laden gibberish of my previous SXSW posts probably suspected as much.) I was coming down with some kind of cold. And the thought of driving back to Austin was filling me with dread. You see, I screwed up this year and made my motel reservations late. By the time I started looking there were no rooms left in Austin for less than hundreds of dollars a night.

The Hickoids' Davy Jones buys his suits
at a thrift store in another dimension

So I ended up in San Marcos, in a cheap motel 30 miles away. At that point, the way I was feeling, 30 miles might as well have been 300.

And even worse, I wasn't even sure what I wanted to go see. Cheetah Chrome was playing on what looked like a decent bill at The Saxon Pub, but that's a pretty small place and I was afraid of driving all the way there only to get spurned at the door.

But looking at Facebook, I noticed a show I'd forgotten about: : The Hickoids, The Grannies, A Pony Named Olga and The Beaumonts at a bar I'd never been to called the Triple Crown. And I almost shed tears of joy when I saw it was in San Marcos. A five minute drive from my motel! Suddenly, I was re-energized and ready to rock 'n' roll.

I'd seen The Hickoids earlier in the week over at The White Horse on Austin's east side, right after they got inducted into The Austin Music Hall of Fame.

The Grannies: This guitar isn't long for this world.

But while the set they played in San Marcos wasn't completely different than the one they did at the White Horse, the group's repertoire is so big there were several tunes I hadn't heard at the earlier gig, including "If Drinkin' Don't Kill Me, Kill Me" and "Talking Hot Pants Blues" from their latest album, Hairy Chaffin' Ape Suit and their cover of "Brontosaurus" ( originally done by The Move). Plus, Jeff Smith's lengthy shaggy-dog spoken-word part of the despicably obscene and always enjoyable "Stop It, You're Killing Me" was a completely different story than the one on the record and past live versions I've seen. My only complaint is that they didn't do my favorite "Cool Arrow" at either of the shows I saw. But the band played something like nine shows during SXSW, so for all I know, they played it at all their other gigs.

While it was fun hanging out backstage with The Hickoids at the Austin Music Awards Wednesday (and yes, I did enjoy seeing Lucinda Williams perform there), I was disappointed that I missed The Grannies when they played the White Horse right before The Hickoids set. I'd seen these San Francisco punk vets my previous SXSW trip in 2012.

A Pony Named Olga

Appearing in full Granny regalia -- colorful wigs, horrible frocks and muumuus -- the band just tore up the joint. They attack the music with humor as much as fury. Singer Wizard Sleeves was wearing some kind of flesh-colored body suit, with elongated drooping breasts, which the audience discovered when he took off his dress, and came out into the crowd twirling his fake mammaries. And guitarist Sluggo ended his set with a classic-rock guitar smashing demonstration.

The other acts were a lot of fun too. A Pony Named Olga is a high-energy psychobilly (they call themselves "country-punk and polkabilly") trio from Berlin, featuring an electric guitarist/singer, a doghouse bass and drummer. They have basics of the genre down pat, but they also have a few unusual melodies and chord changes that bring a twist to that basic sound.

And then there's The Beaumonts, a tight little honky-tonk band from Lubbock led by singer Trow Wayne Delco that plays sweet country music with foul-mouthed lyrics about sex and drugs and getting drunk and more sex. But that's not all. They also have a song called "Toby Keith," in which they declare that the jingoistic country star is the "ugliest woman I swear I've ever seen" and compares him with a muskrat in a mini-skirt. Apparently Delco is still riled -- and rightfully so -- about the way Keith treated Natalie Maines, a fllow Lubbockite -- after she denounced President Bush at the outsewt of the Iraq war.

Saturday, March 15, 2014

Two years ago, my favorite new venue discovery during SXSW was Austin's Moose Lodge -- yes, the actual Moose Lodge ! -- on the city's east side. That was the place where Hillgrass Bluebilly Records held its showcase (that year, with the Muddy Roots Festival and Saving County Music). I loved the venue, not to mention the musical lineup, which included James Hand and The Calamity.

I went back to the Moose Lodge last night for this year's Hillgrass Bluebilly show for another fantastic show. If anything, the music was even better this year. I really do like this place. I like the crowds I've seen both years, which were big enough to provide a good springboard for a performance, but not enough to make you feel claustrophobic.

Possessed by Paul James gets all possessed

Possessed by Paul James, the musical superhero whose secret identity is mild-mannered teacher Konrad Wert, was one of the main reasons I went to the Moose Lodge this year. For those of you not familiar with his music (and who didn't read my recent review of his excellent albumThere Will Be Nights When I'm Lonely).

Although that album found Wert working with backup musicians on some songs, last night he was in his one-man band mode, playing a small arsenal of stringed instruments and using his trademark stomp-box -- which basically is a board that is miked -- as percussion.

All that, and his voice. I'm certainly not the first to note this, but when Wert gets to wailing, sometimes it seems as if he really is possessed. Before he started his set, he said he was having some trouble with his throat. But when he got going, I didn't notice many problems. Possible there were one or two scratchy moments, but that just added some character.

The Skidley Bow.

The other main attraction was Left Lane Cruiser, which plays a raw slide-guitar-based sound you might
call "damaged blues." They are billed as duo --singer/guitarist Frederick Joe Evans IV and drummer/ harmonica player Brenn Beck, both from Indiana -- in recent press material.

But last night, they had a bass player who also made crazy noises on a bizarre homemade instrument fashioned from an old skateboard and a beer bottle. I asked him whether it was a type of diddley bow. He said he calls it a "Skidley Bow."

And on the first song LLC was joined by a fourth player -- Col. J.D. Wilkes from The Legendary Shack Shakers. He played harmonica on an instrumental and the crowd went nuts. Wilkes, whose other band, The Dirt Daubers is in Austin for SXSW, made a similar cameo earlier in the evening with The Pine Hill Haints.

Peewee Moore (center)

I was completely unfamiliar with the rest acts I saw at the Moose Lodge last night, but I liked every one of them. There was the Pine Hill Haints, who began playing a few moments after I walked in. They're a group from Alabama who describe their sound as "Alabama Ghost Music." In addition to stringed instruments, they also have a drummer playing just a snare, a washtub bass, an accordion and -- on their first song, at least, a musical saw.

Pee Wee More, a Tennessee-born songwriter also played with his band -- a lead guitarist and a mandolin player -- who like Moore, sport long Z.Z. Top/Duck Dynasty beards. He writes good honky-tonk tunes that work fine with his acoustic lineup. Buut I'd like to hear him sings these with a full country band -- fiddle, steel, drums etc. Apparently Moore has played at the Cowgirl in Santa Fe before. I hope he comes back so I can catch him again.

And unannounced was a group from nearby San Marcos, Texas called The Rock Bottom String Band. This is a group of countrified hippie kids who play a variety of instruments and sing with so much enthusiasm it was impossible not to get into the spirit. One lady played a bunch of homemade percussion instruments including washboard, spoons and a large plastic water bottle, which she beat the hell out of.

How Gelb

Before I went over to the Moose Lodge, I stumbled into the Continental Club just in time to catch former Giant Sand mastermind Howe Gelb. Seeing him just made me extremely happy. I saw Giant Sand over at the (long defunct) Electric Lounge in 1995, my first South by Southwest. I saw Giant Sand once or twice after that, but it's been years.

Gelb's act was a little lower-key than his Sandy heyday. He was backed by a bass player and a second guitarist who doubled on drums. Some of his quieter songs sound like Marty Robbins after a three-week peyote trip, And on one song, he played an electric cocktail-lounge piano, tickling the ivories (or the plastic) with a subtle insanity that seemed like he could break out and pounce on the audience at any time. But my favorite songs were the ones where Gelb tore lose on electric guitar. He's still got weird vision and fire that made us love Giant Sand to begin with.

And, as I've written so many times before, it wouldn't be SXSW without seeing The Waco Brothers at Bloodshot Records' annual party at Yard Dog Gallery. I was lucky to find a decent parking space and make it just in time for the first song.

Viva Los Wacos!

They did some of my favorites such as "See Willie Fly By," "Plenty Tuff and Union Made" and, the Lonesome Bob tune "Do You Think About Me," which I hadn't heard them perform in years. They also did their covers of Johnny Cash's "Big River," (which Jon Langford introduced as "Hotel California" by The Eagles), "I Fought the Law (and the Law Won)," and a rousing (and I suspect spontaneous) "Hey Bo Diddley."

But I have to play grumpy old man here. As much as I love The Wacos, I couldn't help but feel a little nostalgic for the old Yard Dog Parties of yore, when the size of the crowd squeezing into that back yard of the gallery were smaller and easier to navigate. Back in those golden days of yore (late '90s, basically) I never had any problem finding a space on the front row. The past couple of times I was lucky to even get near the stage.

O.K., back to be being a rock 'n' roller and not an old fart. It's Saturday night already!

Friday, March 14, 2014

Although the city of Austin was still reeling from the shocking police chase that ended with two people dead on Red River Street the night before, the band played on -- in fact, hundreds, if not thousands bands played on Thursday night here in "The Live Music Capitol of the World."

I spent the evening (and early-morning hours) at one of the countless un-official shows that pop up during the festival. This was C-Boys Heart & Soul on South Congress Avenue, where I saw some inspired sets by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages, Bobby Patterson, and The Woggles.

Actually, earlier in ehe night I'd tried to get into The Continental Club down the street for some official, sanctioned sets by Tony Joe White and Dave & Phil Alvin. However, those with badges outrank those of us who only have wrist-bands in the SXSW pecking order at official shows. And there were so many badge holders, lowly wristband folks were left standing outside on Congress Avenue.

The Mighty Manfred of The Woggles

So I went up to C-Boys, where you don't need no stinkin' badges. And about 30 seconds into The Woggles, I'm glad I did. This is a latter-day garage band from Atlanta, which has been together since the early '90s.

Playing mostly, if not all original tunes, you can hear a little Count Five in The Woggles' guitar and aee a little Paul Revere & The Raiders in their moves. But mostly I hear echoes of Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels in The Woggles' music. The foundation is upbeat soul.

I'd actually heard the singer of this band, who calls himself "The Mighty Manfred," a couple of days before on Sirius-XM Radio. He's got his own show on the Little Steven's Underground Garage channel, and, not surprisingly, he's got great music taste.

Next up was a veteran Dallas soul man, Bobby Patterson, who was celebrating his 70th birthday Thursday.

Patterson never was very famous as a performer. He was known mainly as a producer and a DJ. He produced records for Little Johnny Taylor, Fontella Bass and Chuck Jackson and he co-wrote a tune recorded by Albert King ("That's What the Blues Is All About.")

But his set, backed by a band that included a horn section, was lots of fun. At one point he was joined onstage by Whitfield for a song I think is called "Upside the Head."

Speaking of Whitfield, his set was sheer intensity. Playing a set relying on his latest albumDig Thy Savage Soul, he raised the energy level several notches. Guitarist (and Taos resident) Peter Greenberg's fingers literally were bleeding.

I'd caught the tail end of Whitfield's set at Antone's Records on Wednesday, and of course, I'd seen him when he played Santa Fe in 2010. But his C-Boys set was nothing like I've ever seen. Whitfield is one of those performers who benefits immeasurably from a large, charged audience. And that's what he had last night. I just hope the shows I see tonight are anywhere near as fine.

Thursday, March 13, 2014

I had just sat down to blog about what a fine evening of rock 'n' roll I'd had -- all the great music I heard, all the cool people I saw, all the friends I got to hang out with -- on the opening day of the South by Southwest Music Festival.

But then I got a Facebook message from my brother back in Santa Fe. He had news of a bizarre tragedy at SXSW and wanted to know if I was OK.

I've been to The Mohawk many times, including once, a few years ago, with my daughter and son. And I'd considered going there tonight. Among those playing were X, The Black Angels and Les Claypool. A friend of a friend was telling us that he was going there to see X. I don't really know the guy, but I hope he's OK.

I've heard grumbling for years about how the festival has grown to big, how the streets of Austin can't handle the traffic, the crowds, the insanity.

I flashed back to Santa Fe -- the gang-related Fiesta shooting in the '90s, and how that murder on the Plaza dampened the Fiesta spirit for years. (They still burn Zozobra on Thursday instead of Friday because of that killing.) I'm afraid this could have a similar effect on SXSW.

The Hickoids get inducted

And, dammit, I did have a lot of fun Wednesday. I got to see the last few songs of Barrence Whitfield & The Savages' late afternoon gig at Antone's Records. My Santa Fe crony Tom Trusnovic invited me to join him and his band The Hickoids who were getting inducted into the Austin Music Hall of Fame during the Austin Music Awards. I got to see Lucinda Williams perform several songs at the awards show, bringing back fond memories of when I first saw her during my very first SXSW back in '95. I got to shake hands with the great Augie Meyers backstage at that show. And I got to see The Hickoids tear up honky tonk at The White Horse just an hour after their induction.

It was a great day -- not even to mention the time I got to spend with my daughter, her husband and my grandsons earlier.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

I'm just south of Austin now, a little tired from the drive to Santa Fe, but eager to hit the South by Southwest Music Festival Wednesday night.

The Waco Brothers always are a highlight

I'll be blogging at least once a day. Figuring how to balance sleep and blogging is a constant problem during the festival. But it's a good problem to have.

I've got a long history with SXSW. The first time I attended was in 1995. It basically was a spur of the moment decision following a conversation with the late Alex Magosci, a coworker who had a band called Junk, which he fondly referred to as "Santa Fe's most dysfunctional band." He convinced me to travel with junk, which at that point was just a duo, Alex and his girlfriend Virginia Plain (but everyone knew her as "Sandy"), in their convertred school bus, lovingly dubbed The Junk Heap.

Junk rocks Brazos Street, 1995

No, they didn't have an actual slot at the festival, but Alex thought he had lined up a few non-affiliated gigs. So I got my press credentials (which was so much easier back then) and talked my editor into giving me time off to go to Austin for a big Sunday spread. She even got me a little walking around money for the trip. (That was so much easier back then too.)

It was a wild trip. The Junk Heap, which we all thought was parked safely, started rolling unmanned and nearly hit a gas pump in Santa Rosa. The the damned thing broke down in Clovis. It was obvious the bus would never get to Austin. My editor was expecting a big feature on the festival, so I ditched Alex and Sandy and took a plane from Lubbock.

The Hickoids 2012

I felt bad for them, but a couple of days later, who did I run into but Alex and Sandy. The Junk Heap had come through. Of course, all the gigs Alex thought he had lined up fizzled one by one. They tried to set up in various spots along Sixth Street only to get get thwarted one by one. Finally Alex found a friendly shopkeep on Brazos who let him plug into the store's electrical outlet. They started playing right after an Irma Thomas outdoor show about a block away, so they got an instant crowd. They played an inspired handful of songs, which was cut short once again by the Austin police. But they sold about $200 worth of their cassette tapes.

I joined them for the drive back. The Junk Heap broke down again, this time in Fort Stockton, Texas. I barely made it to work Monday afternoon.

Too much fun at the Moose Lodge, 2012

I attended the next five festivals. Then, when I started covering the Legislature in 2001, I had to cut back to every other year because the session is 60 days every odd-numbered year. And the last week always falls during SXSW.

My daughter moved to Austin a few years ago, so these days when I come to Austin for SXSW I usually spend the days with her and her husband and my grandsons -- and prowl for music at night.

So I'm back again. Watch this space, and tell your friends.

And if you're really hard up for reading material, check out some of my old SXSW coverage HERE.

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New MexicanMarch.. , 2014

For the past several years, British-born singer Holly Golightly and her partner, "Lawyer Dave" Drake, have quietly cranked out some of the most enjoyable country-soaked, devil-fearing blues-inspired rock 'n' roll records you'll find anywhere.

Does that sound familiar? For rabid readers of this column it ought to. It's almost word-for-word the same thing I wrote just a little more than a year ago when reviewing Sunday Run Me Over, the previous album by Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs. And their new album All Her Fault continues in that Brokeoff tradition.

Since her garage-punk days as a Billy Childish collaborator, (though she's better known for her one-off collaboration with The White Stripes on a throwaway song called "It's True We Love One Another" more than a decade ago) Golightly hooked up with Drake, moved to a farm in Georgia and evolved into this more rootsy, farm-fresh sound.

There are no major surprises, no major changes on the new record. "I’m not looking to achieve something that hasn’t been achieved before,” Golightly said in the press bio for this album. “We just what we do. The songs are really all that changes.” And that's all right by me. To be sure, there are certain differences on All Her Fault. I think I'm hearing a little more vocals from Lawyer Dave in the mix. And there definitely is more piano. But no radical makeover. After all, when you make music this righteous (in their wickedly irreverent way), this spot-on enjoyable, why feel compelled to reinvent yourself?

The album kicks off with "SLC," an enthusiastic putdown of the capitol of Utah. "Why you wanna go out to Salt Lake City? ... You ain't gonna have a good time." It only makes me wonder who wanted to go to Salt Lake City in the first place ... And why? You might even argue that someone who plays slide guitar as well as Lawyer Dave does on this tune probably could have fun anywhere.

And this album is nothing if not fun. They make fun of phony Nashville cowboys in "Bless Your Heart" and praise an eccentric neighbor in "King Lee."

"1234" sounds like an otherworldly gospel stomp, with Holly and Dave singing in unison over a sinister sounding carnival organ. This is followed by " Don't Shed Your Light," which with a melody and arrangement that would fit in perfectly on one of Levon Helm's last few albums, is one of the couple's trademark gospel-for-unbelievers tunes. It's not as obvious as when they sang a song with the refrain "We need a lot Less of Jesus and a lot more rock and roll" on Sunday Run Me Over, but it's coming from the same sardonic spirit.

Come to think of it, Holly Golightly might just be the Queen of Sardonica as evidenced in at least a couple of songs here.

"The Best" is a sweet country waltz, but the lyrics tell of a love gone well beyond sour. "I am empty and broken, that's what you said ... There is no happy ending, you know I speak the truth / This is the best I can be ..."

And there's "No Business," which, if you're not paying attention to the lyrics, sounds like a good upbeat honky tonk song. But if you are paying attention, you realize that it starts out "Just you try and tell me, I'll rip out your tongue / Won't be whispering sweet nothings in my ear ... Just you try and touch me, I'll chop off your hands ..."

But the duo also shines when they get sincere. They prove that on "Pistol Pete," a song about a rescue horse that the couple adopted. "They thought that they could break him, but he broke them all instead / And anyone who tried him wound up crippled, blind or dead. ... He was troubled and they called him Pistol Pete."

There are fewer cover songs on All Her Fault than on the last album. In fact, the only non-original song on the new one is the blues classic, "Trouble in Mind" -- which was written in 1924 by Richard Jones and first recorded by a singer named Thelma La Vizzo, and later by Louis Armstrong with Bertha "Chippie" Hill, Bob Wills & The Texas Playboys, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Sam Cooke, Johnny Cash, Nina Simone, Marianne Faithful (for a 1985 movie of the same name).

I don't think the Brokeoff's take on it ranks up there with these. But Holly and Dave make a good stab at it. And I do believe that the sun's going to shine on their back door someday.

Also recommended:

*Somewhere Else by Lydia Loveless. In the first song on her new album, ("I Really Want to See You Again") Loveless finds herself coked up at some party and calling an ex-boyfriend who now is married. She admits that sometimes she was "such a bitch" and "so insensitive" (as if calling a married guy is "sensitive") but now she just really wants to see him and tell him all the things she should have said back then.

Ah, young love!

It's not a healthy situation, but it sounds disturbingly real. And, in her short career, being disturbingly real has been Loveless' strong point. Her mostly first-person songs indeed are confessional. But her spitfire voice and rocking little band -- sounding less country, despite that steel guitar on the title song, than her previous full-length album Indestructible Machine -- not to mention her blunt, sometimes profane lyrics, prevent her from sounding like some generic annoying neo-Joni Mitchell female singer-songwriter.

In "Verlaine Shot Rimbaud" she longs for love so crazy and intense that it leads to gunfire. In "Chris Isaak" she sings about an old boyfriend: " When I was 17 I followed you around with my head jammed way up your ass / Oh , what I wouldn't give to still be able to conjure energy like that ... "

And in "Head," let's just say she reveals the best way to get to her heart.

But perhaps the most gut-wrenching song here is "Everything's Gone," which is about her family moving out of the home she grew up in. If I ever get back to where I live ... I'll find a rich man's house and I'll burn it down."

As good as she is now, it's sometimes hard to fathom that Loveless is only in her early 20s. Somehow I think she's got years of great songs ahead of her.

Video time!

Here's a Holly Golightlightly & The Brokeoffs live performance from a few years ago:

Big Enchilada Souvenirs

Just So Ya Know ...

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